


Seeking Sanctuary

by devilinthedetails



Series: Naboo's Queen [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Childbirth, Gen, Padme Survives Childbirth, Sanctuary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26181145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Padme survives childbirth and makes plans for the safety of her children.
Series: Naboo's Queen [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901239
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Seeking Sanctuary

Seeking Sanctuary 

Childbirth—brought on too suddenly and too soon by the shock of Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side—ripped Padme apart. Sweat and tears mingled on her face as she struggled to breathe just as she had when Anakin’s invisible Force fingers had tightened around her neck, choking her. 

She could have died, her vibrant spirit and indomitable will finally crushed by the collapse of the Republic she had served all her life and the descent to the Dark Side of the man she had loved more than any other, but she clutched onto what remained of her existence as if it were water in her palm. She had to live for her children. Her children had to be her single, shining purpose. Her beacon of hope and light in a galaxy of despair and darkness. 

The boy had been born first, his eyes squished as if the bright lights of the birthing room were too overwhelming for him. When Obi-Wan—not Anakin, and that was another heartbreak to add to Padme’s unending list of sorrows—held the baby out to her and told her it was a boy, she had named him Luke. 

Luke. Anakin had chosen that name. He had said that it meant light in a dialect he had grown up hearing on Tatooine. Padme remembered him telling her that as they stood together on her balcony, staring up at the silver stars of the Core that wheeled in the black sky above them. Her Luke would one day light up the galaxy like a Core star, Padme believed that deep in her heart where she tucked her most unshakeable truths. 

The girl—born second but with unblinking eyes wide open as if nothing in the universe could make her cringe—Padme named Leia. Another name Anakin had chosen. Leia, he’d explained on that balcony at night, was a desert flower on Tatooine. A flower his mother had loved to pick, to sniff—inhaling its sweet, floral fragrance—and twist into her hair. Her Leia, Padme knew, would blossom into a flower just as beautiful and beloved. 

The Force would be strong in her children. Anakin’s blood in their veins would ensure that. The Emperor, a man she had once trusted as a mentor and a friend who had only ever been manipulating her and the entire galaxy, Republic and Separatist alike she realized now, would be cunning and ruthless enough to hunt them down if he discovered their existence. They would have to be hidden from him, which meant they must be separated from each other and from her. That way if the Emperor tracked down one of them, he wouldn’t discover them all. 

She had to be shrewd for her children, protecting their future because they were too young to do so for themselves.

“The children.” Padme’s voice was rasping and rusted. She flinched at the grating sound of it in her own ears as she went on, “They’ll have to be kept safe and separated.” 

“Yes.” Obi-Wan bowed his head gravely, and Padme sensed that he had thought of this as well. 

“Bail and his wife Breha have always longed to adopt a girl.” Padme gazed at Bail’s solemn face through the permaglass dome surrounding the birthing chamber. He had confided that to her once when they sat in his office, sipping cups of Naris-bud tea sweetened with honey, after a long meeting discussing shared legislation objectives. He had told her that both he and Breha wished to have a daughter but were unable to do so because of Breha’s medical condition. They had often thought about adopting but never found the time in their busy political lives to actually do so. Now Bail and Breha could adopt her daughter. “Leia will be safe hidden in plain sight with them.” 

Obi-Wan nodded, asking gently, “And Luke?” 

“Anakin had family on Tatooine.” It was difficult to speak of Anakin, her eternal present, in the past tense. “Perhaps they will take him in and raise him. He would be beyond the borders of the Empire there. I will ask them.” 

“If Luke goes to Tatooine, I will live undercover there and watch over him.” Obi-Wan’s tone was quiet but firm, and his eyes were haunted by the ghosts of Anakin, the fallen Republic, and the massacred Jedi. “It will be my absolution, my atonement for failing Anakin and the galaxy.” 

“You never failed anyone.” Through her indescribable grief, Padme offered what solace she could to the man who had been best friend, father, and brother to her husband. 

“You’re kinder than I deserve—than any of us deserve.” A gentle, sad grin cracked Obi-Wan’s features like an egg, and Padme felt a sinking certainty that this—gentle and sad—was how she would forever remember Obi-Wan if she never saw him again after they both disappeared into exile. “What will you do?” 

“I must vanish as well.” Padme answered his sad grin with a small smile of her own that contained little joy. “Alderaan has a sprawling city, Sanctuary Coast, built for refugees. I can take sanctuary there. I imagine that more and more beings will need to hide from the Empire, and so my presence there will go unnoticed and unremarked. Arrangements might even be made for Leia to visit me in secret from time to time. I would not be lonely if I lived among refugees and could see my daughter grow up.” 

It would be a smaller life, a sadder life than she was accustomed to, but it would be a sanctuary, and after all the upheaval in her world and in the galaxy as a whole, what right did she have to ask for anything more than sanctuary for herself and her dear children?


End file.
